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Are You In Sync or Insane with Your Attorney-Clients as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant?

The first attorney I consulted with as a legal nurse consultant was serendipity. Everything I did was perfectly in sync with him. We hit it off like best friends – it was as though we had known each other in another lifetime. With my goal to turn my legal nurse consulting business from my part-time venture into a full-time business, I concluded, “I’ve got it all figured out. I know exactly what attorneys want and this is going to be easy.” Boy, I could not have been more wrong.

When Andy went to his partner Jim (who literally wrote the book in Texas on medical malpractice) and said “Jim, you have to start using Vickie,” use me Jim did. He rode me like my twin brother, Vince rides a thoroughbred horse – hard and fast. Jim was the smartest attorney I’ve ever met and he turned out to be my most challenging attorney-client. In contrast, Andy was fun, respectful and treated me like a lady, while Jim was 100% good-ole-boy and thought women had their place and should stay exactly where that place was (and it wasn’t a good place).

When I moved to Texas from New Orleans for nursing school, I steered clear of the good-ole-boys. The one and only time I went country-western dancing with my friends, some urban cowboy clamped his hand around the back of my neck to lead me like a horse onto the dance floor. I was like, “That’s it! I’m out of here.” I never went country-western dancing again and to this day I don’t like pickup trucks and men in cowboy hats. Country-western music still gives me a pain in my neck. Apologies to all country-western fans – please don’t let my opinion stop you from reading the rest of this blog.

Working with Jim was like being right back in that cowboy dance hall again. After a particularly difficult Jim encounter, I figured if I could survive growing up with my twin brother Vince (who bucked me up at an early age), I could survive this attorney. Understand, Jim is one of the best attorneys I’ve ever met and at the time, I knew I could learn a lot from him, that is if I could keep from killing him or bashing him on the head with one of his big cigars. I haven’t mentioned the cigars and the way he’d smoke them everywhere he went. He figured that when your name is the first one on the door, you do what you want – and he did.

Andy was a gentle giant. In deposition he was vicious but in a way that was downright gentlemanly. Outside the legal arena, he was a teddy bear. This “Odd Couple” (like Brooks and Dunn) were amazingly effective together. Jim was the courtroom showboat and Andy was the street fighter, slugging it out in depositions and motions. Together they created an enviable record and legend.

The experience with Andy and Jim taught me that attorneys come in all shapes and sizes and if I was going to build something big, which was my intention for my legal nurse consulting business, I would have to respond accordingly and get in sync instead of going insane. Jim set the bar very high and expected everyone to leap over it, and we all did – his partners, associates and legal assistants – all rose to his challenge.

So, I bucked up and Jim and I did our dance, through clouds of cigar smoke, glasses of whisky, dirty boots up on his desk during brainstorms and along the way he taught me more about medical malpractice than 95% of other attorneys will ever know. The learning wasn’t just one way though. In my buck-up style, I taught him women professionals didn’t need to be led around by the neck. We reached a truce and our own level of understanding. He made me a better legal nurse consultant. I like to think he’d admit that my work product made him a better attorney, but I don’t think he ever would.

It wasn’t serendipity with Jim, not at first and not ever. But, here’s the real surprise. Like Andy, Jim will always be one of my favorite attorney-clients. But hey, maybe that’s not so surprising, after all, I always LOVE a challenge…as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant, don’t you?

Success Is Inside!

P.S. Do you have any attorney-clients who challenge you? If so, I’d love to hear how you respond to them, comment and let me know!

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*The opinions and statements made by Vickie Milazzo, the founder of Medical-Legal Consulting Institute, Inc. are based on her experiences and expertise, should not be applied beyond the specific context provided, and do not guaranty or project actual results. Vickie Milazzo is no longer involved in the operations or management of the business, but is involved as an independent education consultant.

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